The first round: Speaker’s choice

Vajpayee will formally release his Government’s national agenda tomorrow morning. The document is the coalition’s answer to United Front’s common minimumprogramme.

All contentious issues, as already reported, including the Ramjanmabhoomi issue, Article 370 and Common Civil Code have been deleted. Despite assertion by senior leaders that all states and union territories have been treated at par while formulating the agenda, alliance partners have, while succumbing to the demands of Jayalalitha and Mamata Banerjee, incorporated special packages for Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.

But a showdown on the election of the Speaker appears imminent with BJP deciding to field its own candidate for the post while the Congress and United Front began a search for their candidate in what is going to be the first trial of strength for the Vajpayee Government ahead of the confidence vote. BJP leader Jaswant Singh said the party was for a consensus on the post which by convention went to the ruling combine.

The election for the Speaker’s post is likely to be held on March 25 after completion of oath-taking by newly-elected members on March 23 and 24. BJP sources said MPfrom South Delhi Sushma Swaraj was being strongly favoured for the Speaker’s post saying it would send a right signal in that she would be the first woman to occupy that office.

Meanwhile, on the other front, Congress and United Front leaders began discussions on adopting a common strategy to oppose the BJP candidate.

Following the decision of P A Sangma, speaker of the dissolved Lok Sabha, not to be a candidate in case of a contest, the Congress-UF are jointly considering some names like former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Motilal Vora and former speaker Shivraj Patil. Both Vora and Patil had separate meetings with Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

Congress leaders, Sharad Pawar and Arjun Singh, who comprise a high-level committee constituted by Sonia Gandhi to coordinate with secular forces both within and outside Parliament, also discussed the prospects of floor coordination within and outside Parliament. Mulayam Singh Yadav, Sharad Yadav, Harkishen Singh Surjeet and A B Bardhan represented the Frontat the talks.

Earlier, Vajpayee was scheduled to meet Advani late tonight to give final touches to his ministry which continues to pose problems for the BJP and its allies. In an effort to a find a way out of the plethora of demands from his own partymen and the coalition partners for ministerial berths, Vajpayee has asked all party leaders, including Advani as BJP president, to give him a list of leaders they want in the Council of Ministers.

But it is the crucial Finance Ministry which has emerged as the real headache for the new Prime Minister. Vajpayee’s confidant and Minister of Finance in his 13-day government, Jaswant Singh, would have been the natural choice. His defeat in the recently concluded elections has been a real blow and in the face of a principled decision by the BJP not to give cabinet berths to those who have lost, Singh is unlikely to be sworn in for the present.

Lacking a suitable alternative, a section of the BJP is believed to be putting tremendous pressure on Advani to take theportfolio himself. He is, however, reluctant. He is more keen on the Home Ministry which he would like to see restored to its old glory when it had under it sensitive departments such as the Intelligence Bureau, Central Bureau of Investigation and personnel.

RSS plans cabinet for BJP

A proposal presently under consideration by Prime Minister-designate Atal Bihari Vajpayee and BJP president L K Advani envisages compressing the present mammoth ministerial setup into 23 major ministries overseeing 42 departments. This would make them "more functional, people friendly and result oriented", a senior BJP functionary said. According to the draft paper, the four major ministries of Telecommunication, Surface Transport, Civil Aviation and Power, will be amalgamated and work under an umbrella Ministry ofInfrastructure, to be run by a cabinet rank minister. For the socio-economic development of the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, backward and minority communities, the paper has proposed converting the existing Ministry of Welfare into a Ministry of Social Justice and divide it into three separate departments – SC/ST/Backward Community/Tribal, Minority & Waqf Development and Aged/Kashmiri migrants & Social Defence – to provide justice at people’s door step.